Strategy · Governance · Environment
Devin Stein
How order emerges without hierarchy
Assistant Professor of Management, Colorado State University
Fellow, Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society
Fellow, Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society
My research asks how communities and organizations self-organize to govern complex environmental problems — wildfire, water, and natural resource systems — when no single actor has the authority or knowledge to act alone. I draw on institutional economics, polycentric governance theory, and strategic management to study the structures that emerge when coordination happens without command.
Methods & tools
Panel econometrics · IV/GMM · Geospatial analysis · Archival data
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Stata · Python · QGIS · R
01Research
My work contributes to strategy and management theory by studying polycentric governance — how decentralized, overlapping organizational structures create public value in contexts where centralized authority breaks down.
R&R · SMJ
[Title withheld for blind review] — Comparative governance of social issues
Under Review · AMJ
[Title withheld for blind review] — Stakeholder alignment in multilevel public-private collaborations
Working Paper
Are Players Early Birds or Work Mules? The Comparative Governance of Crowdsourcing
Working Paper
Know Thy Neighbor: Community Organizing and Knowledge Spillovers
Working Paper
Scaling Without Hierarchy: Governing Collective Action Across Organizational Boundaries
Working Paper
Enabling Systemic Search Through Interorganizational Hybridity
Working Paper
Nonmarket Strategies and Firm Performance: An Industry Lifecycle Perspective
02Recognition
2025Finalist, Best Dissertation AwardAcademy of Management — Social Impact & Management (SIM)
2025Excellence in Innovative Teaching AwardManderson Graduate School of Business
2025Untenured Tenure-Track Instructional Excellence AwardCulverhouse College of Business
2024Best Dissertation AwardAcademy of Management — Organizations & the Natural Environment (ONE)
2023Smith FellowThomas W. Smith Foundation / Institute for Humane Studies
2022Dr. Torpey Teaching Excellence AwardWhitman School of Management, Syracuse University
2022Outstanding Teaching Assistant AwardSyracuse University Graduate School
2015First Place, Undergraduate Research CompetitionAssociation of Private Enterprise Education
03Teaching
Overall instructor rating: 4.6 / 5.0 across 165 student evaluations. Three teaching excellence awards.
GBA 525
Business Policy
Manderson Graduate School of Business, Alabama
GBA 490
Strategic Management
Culverhouse College of Business, Alabama
MGT 387
Building Blocks of Entrepreneurship I
Culverhouse College of Business, Alabama
EEE 370
Introduction to Entrepreneurship
Whitman School of Management, Syracuse
04Presentations
2025
Minniti, Rodriguez & Stein — “The Multilevel Nature of Social Entrepreneurship: Managing the AIDS Epidemic in Brazil”
Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference, Boston
2024
Stein & Minniti — “Know Thy Neighbor: Community Organizing and Knowledge Spillovers”
Academy of Management, Chicago · Babson BCERC, Munich
2022
Palubinskas, Stein & Minniti — “Nonmarket Strategies and Firm Performance”
Strategic Management Society, London
Stein — “Nested Knowledge and the Creation of Public Value”
Oxford Residence Week · Industry Studies Association, Philadelphia
Diaz, Stein & Minniti — “Legitimacy, Licensing, and Informal Entrepreneurship”
Babson BCERC, Waco
2020–2021
Stein & Minniti — “Competition, Coordination, and Civic Wealth Creation”
Academy of Management, 2021 · Social Entrepreneurship Conference, Bloomington, 2020
Stein & Minniti — “Decentralized Institutions for Public Goods”
Academy of Management, Vancouver, 2020 · SEE Conference, San Juan, 2020
2015–2019
“Managing Uncertainty in Seasonal Markets with Diversification”
APEE, Nassau, 2019
“Burning Budgets: Institutional Blank-Checks and Wildland Fire”
APEE, Lahaina, 2017 · Public Choice Society, New Orleans, 2017 · Utah State (Invited)
Isom, Patty & Stein — “Water in Utah: Institutional, Economic, and Political Options for Reform”
PERC/Strata/IHS, Lahaina, 2017 · USU Spring Runoff, 2017
Hoffer, Hopkins & Stein — “Disincentives to Business Development in the Navajo Nation”
APEE, Cancun, 2015
05For Introductions
Short bio
Devin Stein is an Assistant Professor of Management at Colorado State University. His research examines how communities and organizations self-organize to govern complex environmental challenges, with a focus on wildfire management and natural resource systems. His work has been recognized with the Academy of Management's Best Dissertation Award (ONE Division) and multiple teaching excellence awards. He holds a Ph.D. from Syracuse University.
Extended bio
Devin Stein is an Assistant Professor of Management at Colorado State University and a Fellow with the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society at Syracuse University. His research sits at the intersection of strategic management, institutional economics, and environmental governance, asking how decentralized, polycentric organizational structures emerge to address problems — like wildfire risk and water governance — that no single actor can solve alone. Drawing on transaction cost economics, property rights theory, and Ostromian governance, his empirical work combines panel econometrics, geospatial analysis, and archival methods to study community organizing, public-private collaboration, and knowledge spillovers in environmental contexts. His dissertation on wildfire management received the Academy of Management's Best Dissertation Award (Organizations and the Natural Environment Division, 2024) and was a finalist for the SIM Division award. He has received multiple teaching excellence recognitions and previously served on the faculty at the University of Alabama's Culverhouse College of Business. He holds a Ph.D. from the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and an M.S. in Economics from Utah State University.